VIDEO WORK

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFptbKQjDAs/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

All images and/or screenshots used below are my own and were taken during the production of my work.

Introduce your video work in relation to responding to the conceptual brief and the guidelines on form. 

This week, my Instagram post is inspired by our upcoming studio collaboration with McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery. My aim is to respond to the conceptual brief to guide the content of video production which is ‘‘Space and time for contemplation beyond our everyday life”. For this piece of work, I have compiled stills from my visits to the NGV. This was inspired by our class discussions about how art can make us conscious of ourselves and the world around us. We have considered how art galleries can provide people with experiences they would not get through everyday activities. In this week’s studio blog post, it states that “… it could be argued that art through the way it transports our thinking to places we have not considered before, is often seen as providing experiences ‘beyond our everyday life’”. In terms of form, the guideline for this work was working with the process of sequential design. The prompt is to deliver a swipeable Instagram carousel that could be converted into a moving-image (or video) slide show, which has 3-10 photos that is published on Instagram in your account. My intention is to look back on my experiences at the NGV and how the gallery serves as a place that provides space and time for contemplation.

What did you learn from the authoring and publishing process? 

While authoring this week, I selected still images from my Camera roll to be used in my carousel. I produced the carousel using the app Film Frames, which helps you create layouts for Instagram posts. I chose to use the ‘Seamless Carousel Pack’, using 4 carousel slides (with 7 images in total). After considering the placement and order of each still, I exported the carousel images in the highest resolution possible for Instagram (1080p). While authoring and publishing this week, my biggest surprise was the amount of photo editing software available for carousels on the App store- it appears that with every rollout of new Instagram features, developers are quick to produce tools that take advantage of these affordances. Film Frames was incredibly simple to use and I was able to produce the carousel without much trouble.

What went well? 

I was really satisfied with the overall look of this carousel- I combined the images from the NGV with some related imagery from my Camera roll of clouds and a fluorescent room to fit within the overall colour palette of the post and my overall Instagram feed. I believe the visuals I chose work together in the sequence well in capturing the feeling of being at the NGV. I wanted to pay homage to the artists Rosslyd Piggott and Ross Manning whose works have been featured in past exhibitions. The Film Frames application really simple to use and was especially useful in seeing the overall layout of the images within the post.

What did not go well? 

While producing the content to be published, I did not consider that manipulating images of the artists’ works in this way means they may not be presented in the way each artist originally intended them to. This presents an ethical concern in terms of use, which I will have to be sensitive to in the future while creating content for Instagram. I also had to ensure that I attributed all of the artists’ work in the caption (the original post has now been edited to include the titles of the work, dates of the work and artist names).

What could you do better? 

In my final post I ended up only using 7 slides in my carousel; in the livestream presented by Instagram marketing expert Chris Do, he talks about how to maximise the use of carousels on Instagram. Instagram affords 10 slides in a carousel, so why not use them all? This would increase the amount of time spent on my post and direct viewers to my profile. Additionally, as I opted to use an app instead of Adobe software to create the carousel, I feel as though there are skills I could learn to produce more dynamic carousels. Creating a carousel in Photoshop would give me more control over the positioning and visual relationships between the images in each slide. I also feel some technical aspects of the post could be improved, for example, some of the images could have been in higher resolution. As I was only selecting images from my gallery, unfortunately, I did not have much control over this factor.

Respond to the studio prompt question ‘How do the affordances of Instagram affect the way video content is authored?‘ What insights can you add in response to this question? 

Carousels are unique in that they are essentially an album of content. Albums of photos and videos can be found on other platforms like Facebook, however, on Instagram, there is a level of interactivity involved in swiping through the content. This creates large potential for creators and businesses to use carousels to get users spending more time on Instagram viewing posts on their home feed, before directing them to their profile. While authoring content for Instagram, there are a range of formats that can now be considered: Reels, IGTV, stories, story highlights, carousels, and generic photo and video posts. With this wide array of options available to creators, it becomes difficult to decide which is worthwhile using to author engaging content. The key with carousels is that it is possible to draw people in through the first few slides, which is when users will consider whether they want to engage with the entire post or not. One downside to using carousels is that later slides may not be viewed, and will essentially be hidden away in the main Instagram feed.